This paper examines the dynamics of technical change in the Italian locomotive industry in the period 1850-1913. From an historical point of view, this industry presents a major point of interest: it was one of the few relatively sophisticated "high-tech" sectors in which Italy, a latecomer...

This paper reconsiders the nexus between the abundance of resources and the origins of Sicilian mafia by exploiting a new set of historical data on the Sicilian sulphur industry in the late 19th century, obtained from official reports of the Royal Corps of Mining Engineers at the municipal...

This chapter documents instances from past centuries where inventors freely shared knowledge of their innovations with other inventors. It is widely believed that such knowledge sharing is a recent development, as in Open Source Software. Our survey shows, instead, that innovators have long...

We examine the diffusion of steam technology across British counties during the eighteenth century. First, we provide new estimates for the regional variations in the timing, pace and extent of usage of steam engines. Our main data source is an updated version of the list of steam engines...

The aim of this paper is to provide a critical survey of patent systems during the first phase of the industrialization process with a special focus on the British case. Perhaps surprisingly, no consensus has been reached yet as to whether the emergence of modern patent systems exerted a...

Using the demand side approach we construct a new set of estimates of per capita agricultural output and per capita GDP for England over the period 1250-1850. Our estimates of per capita GDP suggest that the pattern of long run growth of the English economy can be interpreted with a...

In this paper we examine the phenomenon of independent invention in Italy during the liberal age (1861-1913). We make use of a new dataset comprising all patents granted in Italy in five benchmark years: 1864-65, 1881, 1891, 1902 and 1911. We carry out the following exercises. First we examine...

This paper examines the relationship between patents, appropriability strategies and market for technologies in the English brewing industry before 1850. Previous research has pointed to the apparent oddity that large-scale brewing in this period was characterized both by a self-aware culture of...